US CompSci Enrollment Leaps For 5th Straight Year

dcblogs writes "The number of new undergraduate computing majors in U.S. computer science departments increased more than 29% last year, a pace called 'astonishing' by the Computing Research Association. The increase was the fifth straight annual computer science enrollment gain, according to the CRA's annual survey of computer science departments at Ph.D.-granting institutions. The survey also found that more students are earning a Ph.D., with 1,929 degrees granted — an 8.2% increase over the prior year. The pool of undergraduate students represented in the CRA survey is 67,850. Of that number, 57,500 are in computer science."

Comments

Career with no Prospect

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it is astonishing considering how many jobs are available.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Anonymous Coward]

Comments like this absolutely make my day. (That was sarcasm).

I truly hope this 'sky is falling' mentality in regard to prospects of a career in CS prevalent here is a bit overstated and pessimistic.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Anonymous Coward]

OP sounds sarcastic, but I have no idea whether he is targeting the optimists or the pessimists. It could be taken either way.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Austerity Empowers]

It is, if you're under 30 there are plenty of jobs. But as soon as your salary reaches a certain point, manage or panhandle.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Anonymous Coward]

of course it is. i'm no star programmer, i'm only a few years out of school. i make great money now and constantly get emails and voice messages from recruiters because I left my linkedin and monster profiles up.

maybe this is because i live in a good cs jobs location (near dc), but that doesn't mean graduates can't move to such an area and find a job.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Anonymous Coward]

I...But as soon as your salary reaches a certain point, manage or panhandle.

There's a difference?

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Bhrian]

A local company hires CS majors with a year of experience for about $30K. They prefer H1B employees when possible.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Austerity Empowers]

Fewer sunburns, higher risk of street violence.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[gstovall]

I was a hiring manager in the late 90s. Newgrad CS salaries of $70K were common.

How times have changed.

Oh, and that $70K? With inflation, it's equivalent to $97K now.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Anonymous Coward]

In my neck of the woods recent graduates often get offered north of $100k.
I'd like to know where one can find all those people willing to $30k because I have multiple positions opened and even with the 6 figure salaries finding qualified candidates is freaking hard.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Anonymous Coward]

Or just become really good at what you do. I'm almost 50, and I make a little over $130K (in a city with a moderate cost of living) - no managing and no panhandling.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Anonymous Coward]

Anywhere more than a day's drive to the Pacific. In some places making 30k in only 40 hours a week is considered the best non-management can do.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Anonymous Coward]

US (and most other western nations) unemployment for college graduates is not very good, but if you tease out engineers from arts, you get a pretty decent employment rate out of college. It isn't a safe bet but it is still nowhere near the roughly 50% unemployment for blacks youths for instance. We have it very easy in comparison.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Anonymous Coward]

I am 45 and really good at what I do (building web apps), but I'm not good at self-promotion. I'm pretty quiet and just keep my nose to the grindstone to avoid office politics. Any advice on getting _recognition_ for being good at what I do?

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Anonymous Coward]

Graduated with not just a BS but an MS in CompSci. Best I could do in Mississippi/Alabama was 41k.

I think they're aware the wages are low, though. Every perf review they lay it on thick.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Anonymous Coward]

I teach CS at a university, and our grads are definitely getting more than $30K, H1B or otherwise.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[luis_a_espinal]

It is, if you're under 30 there are plenty of jobs. But as soon as your salary reaches a certain point, manage or panhandle.

I've been hearing that shit since the early years of my career.

I'm 43, making an upper-middle class salary (not counting benefits), doing nothing but coding and software engineering. Management is not anywhere in my plans (not in the near future). I have a colleague in his 50's doing a killing as a contractor (over $100/hr, with O/T.) Others in their 40's and 50's are still doing predominantly technical jobs doing a killing in terms of salaries with no shortage of opportunities. And I'm not talking coding in some safe-COBOL-niche cave, but doing a variety of things, from Machine Learning/Big Data to device driver development.

Jobs are plenty in systems and/or application development spaces (and to a lesser, but still substantial degree in IT/infrastructure) ... if you have the technical know-how. Age is rarely an issue. Now, if you (the generic "you", not one in particular) are an easily replaceable, cookie-cutter, copy-n-paste programmer, your job prospects are dim, even if you are in the vitality of your 20's.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[LifesABeach]

Given that certain chancellors of universities are increasing their salaries by ignoring the children of the parents that built the universities. Given that those same chancellors are actively recruiting nonresident students, everywhere. Given that some of the monies those chancellors earn are coming from unknown sources. Should I be amazed that there is a positive correlation to these 3 Givens?

Re: Career with no Prospect

[Anonymous Coward]

Senior at Missouri S&T here - please send contact info to david.zemon at mst dot edu and I'm pretty sure you'll get plenty of applicants with the possibility of 100k starting

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Anonymous Coward]

First, you are probably part of a large corporation, or an in-demand consultant. The people who can't find jobs at age 30 are usually open-source/FOSS people who hate Windows or whatever tool it is that their company buys. You aren't going to make that kind of money doing Linux patches for a company.

Second, the Indian wave is commoditizing coding and engineering jobs to death. Companies are complaining they can't find "skilled" workers, where "skilled" means willing to work on an H1B for half the rate of the US guy.
 

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Anonymous Coward]

A local company hires CS majors with a year of experience for about $30K. They prefer H1B employees when possible.

Maybe... but who wants to be a Windows admin? hardly a career... more like a sentence...

Re:Career with no Prospect

[bzipitidoo]

You pile a lot of qualifications on your claim that IT jobs are plentiful. "... in systems and/or app development spaces" but not quite so much in infrastructure, and "if you have the technical know-how", and "age is rarely an issue". Granted that skills are essential, and that there are a lot of talkers out there who can get hired but can't do the job, but I hardly think that is a problem specific to IT. More than that, rarely isn't good enough. Age should never be an issue. If age is an issue, then I should say that the organizations which discriminate on that basis can't really need people all that badly, or they could not afford to so discriminate.

You further admit that "cookie-cutter, copy-n-paste" programmers, who are nevertheless programmers and so are not complete frauds even if poor at programming, have "dim" job prospects, and are "easily replaceable".

You also mention a 50s something colleague who is making a killing as a contractor. Oh really? Well, maybe he is, and certainly some do, but how do you know? If all you know are his rates, you don't know. A big reason consultants have to charge $100/hr kind of rates is in large part because they cannot get steady work. $100/hr is not so good if you can only get 20 hours of work in a month, and have to spend the rest of the month chasing down more work. You might have a great year in which you have more work than you can handle and you can pull in $200k. Might. But you will have bad years when no one needs you right now, and the few pitiful jobs you do land get you a mere $20k. Some professionals didn't choose consulting, they got pushed into it because no one wanted to hire them permanently. It shows in their income, which is usually rather less than they would get with a full time position. Other reasons for charging such rates is you're on your own with health insurance, self employment tax, and things like equipment. It's annoying and distracting to have to deal with all that administrative crap when you know you need to focus on core technological skills. You have to charge more to compensate. $100/hr is NOT equivalent to $200k annual salary even if you do manage to land enough work to stay busy full time. A rule of thumb I've heard is 1.5x, that is, $100/hr on a consulting basis is worth about the same as $67/hr (or $134k/yr) on a steady, full time basis. Pretty good pay, depending on location, but that's only if you can find enough work to stay gainfully busy most of the time. One thing about this is that businesses have successfully pushed off the problem of how to find enough work onto the consultant. They save on having to plan, save on the huge expense of having idle workers, by making the worker into a consultant who doesn't get any work or pay when they can't do their job of balancing work with available workers.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Anonymous Coward]

I was a hiring manager in the late 90s. Newgrad CS salaries of $70K were common.

How times have changed.

Oh, and that $70K? With inflation, it's equivalent to $97K now.

Real computer science jobs still pull that kind of scratch. Trouble is, most going into CS believe it will make them better at repairing computers, and they are obviously hanging on to that misconception if they can actually complete the program.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[czth]

Sure. Update your resume and start pounding the pavement (make use of any contacts you might have first, then hit the usual online boards). Or strike out on your own (maybe take a few friends with you, depending on what you signed when you started) and build web apps as a contractor.

Fact remains that your best chance at a pay (and maybe responsibility) increase is to switch employers.

If you're set on staying where you are, the same kinds of things that you would do to make yourself look good on a resume (e.g., enumerate your accomplishments in terms that can be seen to relate to a company's bottom line - not necessarily in a dollars and cents-specific manner, but in way that makes clear what you built or directed and how you took responsibility) can also help you when talking to your manager.

If you're strictly looking for a raise, first do some research about prevailing pay rates (check ads; check GlassDoor) - if you're underpaid, you have an easier case (you can also try talking to friends at work - good friends, as pay tends to be something people don't talk about and management encourages not talking about it for obvious reasons). Either way, you want to present a case that has something for them, too. Saying "I think I deserve a raise" doesn't help much and creates defensiveness. Better to come to an agreement about a goal. Ramit Sethi has some great advice in How to Hack Your Day Job (short article and a couple of videos).

If you're looking for a promotion, and not so much the money, you still want to proceed along the same lines, but first consider whether the company has openings at the level you're looking at. If you want to go from, say, developer to senior developer, that's likely not a problem since the company defines what "senior developer" means, and you can help yourself by examining others at that level and trying to do what they do as well as you can within the constraints of your present position. However, moving to a lead/manager position will require an opening. For any promotion, try to take on more responsibility where you are - volunteer to write requirements documents, coordinate builds, create tools and processes that streamline or automate poor processes. Keep a log of these accomplishments, even if it's just in a text file, so you can present specific reasons when discussing advancement.

A book I'm reading now called Dinosaur Brains (Albert J. Bernstein) has some interesting observations about office politics and psychology and it may be helpful to you. Avoiding "office politics" isn't really an option, but you can participate on your own terms. Seth Godin's books—Lynchpin (on being indispensable), in particular, in your case, and perhaps The Dip—will also be helpful and help you marshal your arguments and perhaps give you a push to move forward or move on to somewhere that can better use your talents.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[czth]

To add to what you said about contracting, which I think is right on (would have modded up if I had points), there are also different ways contractors can be paid (in the US): W2, 1099, or corp-to-corp (c2c). I found this page (I am not the author) which has an excellent summary of the three, pros and cons, and the tax implications, including some worked examples. Basically W2 is the easiest for tax purposes (but the rate will usually be lower because the company is paying more taxes), 1099 might draw the attention of the IRS, and corp-to-corp is a little more difficult to set up but probably a good idea if you plan to be contracting long term.

1.5x may be right for 1099 or c2c, but for W2, taxes will be the same but you do have to factor in benefits (including vacation and sick days which won't usually be paid). Given a W2 rate, figure for, say, 48 or 49 weeks (allowing 3-4 weeks unpaid vacation/sick) and check rates for getting your own healthcare (both premiums and what you may need to pay out of pocket; if you have been employed FT, look at what your insurance paid on your behalf in the last few years and average, and account for expensive items like having a kid). We've been (2 of us, no kids) using $12k/year as a round figure, and neither of us has any unusual conditions/diseases. For example: $75/hour = 75 x 40 (they usually won't let you bill more than 40 hours without approval regardless) x 48 - 12k = 132k equivalent salaried. (And I'm not factoring in some things like having access to a 401k plan, extra accounting costs, or, that medical coverage is deducted from salaried paychecks, which may reduce the 12k a little.) So in this case compared to a "naive" 75 x 40 x 52 = 156k, the ratio is closer to 1.2x.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Anonymous Coward]

Washington, DC. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Anonymous Coward]

"He doesn't like you."
"I'm sorry."
"I don't like you either!"
"You must be a Republican."
"I'm a lobbyist! I have the death sentence in twelve districts!"
"...is this one of them?"

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Grishnakh]

I am 45 and really good at what I do (building web apps), but I'm not good at self-promotion. I'm pretty quiet and just keep my nose to the grindstone to avoid office politics. Any advice on getting _recognition_ for being good at what I do?

Look for another career. This career is for highly outgoing people who are really good at self-promotion. There's a reason the term "brogrammer" has risen so much in the last decade. As you've probably found, you can get by pretty well when you're younger based solely on your ability to perform, without having to be really good at socialiaing and promoting yourself, but after you reach a certain age, age discrimination sets in and if you're the quiet type who isn't good at tooting your own horn like all the brogrammers, then you're screwed.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Grishnakh]

There's quite a few open-source/FOSS jobs out there (or, at least, "quasi-open-source"), largely thanks to the rise of Android and embedded Linux systems. The pay is quite good since there's not that many people available who can do Linux device drivers and other embedded development.

(I say "quasi-open-source" because these jobs, IME, will usually have you working on closed-source Linux(/Android) drivers and other closed-source software that runs on embedded Linux and Android systems. So you'll be working with Linux in some way, whether it's a full-blown Linux system or Android which is a Linux kernel plus a bunch of other crap, but you won't be developing actual FOSS software for it. But it's still a whole lot better than working with Windows.)

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Grishnakh]

They should change the name of that city to just "DC", and drop the "Washington" part. If he were alive now, George Washington would be utterly ashamed of the city that's named after him.

Re:Career with no Prospect

[Grishnakh]

So why do you stay? MS/AL are probably two of the absolute worst states to have a tech job in; there aren't many jobs there to begin with, and those that are there pay shit, as you've found out. This phenomenon is pretty common in all places where there aren't many tech jobs: employers think that because there isn't much local competition, that they can get people to work for pennies, touting the supposedly "low cost of living" as making up for it (it doesn't). Usually, the only reason people stay in these areas with these shit-paying jobs is because they have some odd allegiance to the place, perhaps because all their dumb family members live there. (And if this is the case for you, then your family should be paying you the difference in yearly salary between what you make now and what you can make elsewhere, if they really want you to stay so badly.)

More paycheck hunters! Yeah!

[Anonymous Coward]

I was one of those back in the 90s. Currently looking for the next bubble to exploit. Please consider me an oxygen thief and let it go at that.

Degree Mills

[Anonymous Coward]

This is because colleges are increasingly becoming degree mills and focusing on quantity over quality. Previously, only the cream of the crop would go to college, but now everyone is going to college, college degrees are becoming more and more worthless, and colleges are lowering standards to accommodate all the new imbeciles.

Re:Degree Mills

[hedwards]

That's why you go to a college that actually has standards. There are schools where that is the case, then there are schools that demand a bit more, and you'd be nuts to suggest that the people doing hiring haven't figured out which degrees are valuable and which aren't. At least as far as large employers.

Re:Degree Mills

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why you go to a college that actually has standards.

Or don't go to a college at all and self-educate.

But really, there are fewer decent colleges than there were before, and they are indeed few in number.

and you'd be nuts to suggest that the people doing hiring haven't figured out which degrees are valuable and which aren't.

The people doing the hiring can't even figure out that it's not the piece of paper, but the person's skill, that is valuable. I don't have much faith in PR drones.

Re:Degree Mills

[Niris]

Depends on your definition of standards. I go to a local State college because, well, it's local and I can afford it. If you're paying your own way, there's not a lot of chances for you to go to a very high end university for computer science. I am looking at alternatives for when (if) I get my masters, but I may just end up staying here because of that same exact reason.

What's really important for a computer science graduate isn't necessarily the school, but their own independent projects. While my school isn't the best, it does provide enough information to lay down a foundation for further self study, and those of us that are smart enough to take the initiative to learn additional platforms (Android, embedded systems and robotics, etc.) and build portfolios are doing way better than the others who are just in the major because they 'like the Internet' or heard that it pays well. There's a huge degree of separation between myself, who has just been offered an internship as an Android development intern for a large media corporation, and a couple of my friends/drinking buddy classmates who haven't developed their abilities outside of class projects that were required to receive a passing grade.

Re:Degree Mills

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you are right. I truly do. I'm in a similar situation, and the way the comments here and other places always go with type of story disturb me.

Unfortunately, there isn't much else I've demonstrated any particular talent at, so I take more debt.

Re:Degree Mills

[TheSeatOfMyPants]

This is where knowing which school someone's degree(s) came from. The top-tier universities in particular are actually harder to get into than ever to the high number of international & American students vying for acceptance. It's the community colleges & generic state/private schools that are being forced to lower their standards, and that's not because the students are stupid -- it's because so many are being pushed through the K-12 system with abilities that wouldn't have gotten them past the third grade 20 years ago.

That's speaking both as a 30something aware I wouldn't get into my high-ranked alma mater if my 18-year-old self applied today, and as someone that tutored & the graded papers of local community college freshmen in the mid-late 90s & 2002. The kids in the 90s basically needed help editing their papers or other college-level stuff; the ones in '02 were barely fucking literate despite being white middle-class native English speakers without learning disabilities, and the instructor told me it had been like that for 2-3 years by then, but that the dean said we couldn't flunk anyone unless they turned *nothing* in.

That said, the main reason for going to college isn't supposed to be job training for the elite -- it's to learn the many things that result in a well-informed citizen and aren't available by just hanging around one's hometown or just traveling for a year or two. That's why our government decided to begin educating our population rather than leaving it to the elite, why it's traditional to have students take courses in multiple fields unrelated to what they *think* they'll want to do with their lives for at least the first 2 years, and why a hell of a lot of students at the good schools find their viewpoints or awareness of what's really going on shifting broadly during that time period.

Re:Degree Mills

[hedwards]

The companies worth working for usually have better HR.

Re:Degree Mills

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of my students were unfit to be even in high school. But the University got Government money per student, thus no body gives a hoot about better education. Most got 5,6, 9 out of hundred, yet the chair person changed their F grade to 'A". The administration did know this but was enjoying tax payers paid income. US education is in shamble.

Re:Degree Mills

[Tough Love]

The companies worth working for usually have better HR.

What makes you think that?

Re:Degree Mills

[BrianRoach]

The companies worth working for have engineers do the interviewing and hiring. HR schedules things and does the paperwork.

Re:Degree Mills

[Anonymous Coward]

Worst case, you take a couple of less than stellar jobs at low pay as you build a bit of a rep, then move up or around. After a few years, your accomplishments are more important than your education, anyway. A 4.0 from MIT might help when securing an interview for Google but most places are more concerned about your ability to reliably deliver. If you can save costs, be it through math, engineering, or intuition, at the same time, most places will be glad to have you. You won't be a rockstar but, unless you like a startup culture, it's not a big deal.

If you don't have the prestigious degree, don't worry about it. Instead, work on business skills (e.g., accounting, taxes, business management, networking, and leadership). Straight out of school in 2003 (less-than-prestigious university), I landed a contract as a software tester. Here's a list of my fuck-ups.
- I didn't know the difference between a contractor and an employee. I just knew that it didn't mean stocking shelves at Home Depot at night for minimum wage.
- I didn't know what I was worth and it may have cost me the job; I was second choice and given the position after first choice bailed.
- I didn't know what I was worth, so I was underpaid.
- I didn't incorporate straight away, how to keep books, or what could be written off. The result is that I've probably paid an extra $15k-$20k in taxes over the past decade.
- I went to H&R Block (Taxes R Us) to get my taxes done the first time I started writing stuff off and trusted them way more that I should have. They missed some deductions and also have a few oddities in my tax filings that could get me audited.
- I didn't socialize enough, which left me out of the loop on important things, like other opportunities and even knowing what the contracting organization was paying other contractors. This probably cost me $5k-$10k in my last year alone.
- I didn't stay in touch. People move around and up; your middle manager today may become a senior manager on a high-profile project tomorrow. Keeping in touch will have more opportunities come to you and will give you a leg up in anything you apply to.
- Stepped on toes like I was drunkenly dancing in clogs. I was fortunate enough to have a manager that was willing to insulate me from the office politics so I could get work done.

What I did do right:
- Studied hard. You'd be amazed how far reading the damn book or instruction manual will get you in life. Study the API, read books on the basics, etc. and you'll be above most people.
- Worked diligently. Good performance gets attention. In my case, I was the lone tester and managed to bring down the defects to a very low level.
- Looked for ways to save time. By the end, I used my programming skills plus some off-the-shelf software to be able to write and perform about 300 pages of tests in the course of a week.
- Asked for that letter of recommendation. When my original supervisor announced he was leaving the organization, I asked if he'd be willing to write a letter of recommendation. That baby is the head-shot of job hunting; whenever I fire off an application, it gets me an interview.
- Joined LinkedIn. Sounds corny but it's a great way to keep contact info at your finger tips. It also makes it easier for ex-bosses to prescreen you for a position; open hiring is time consuming and expensive, so it's possible that there will be a choice between hiring you and starting the massive machinery of open hiring. Remember that most people aren't looking for the best person for the job, they are looking for a person that will do the job well.

The skills I learned at school allowed me to execute my duties well. However, from a personal standpoint, I would have done a lot better if I had embraced the business side of things more. Sadly, I learn mostly from my mistakes and not from the mistakes of others.

Re:Degree Mills

[Anonymous Coward]

There is more money in CS grad depts than almost any other. If you're paying your own way for grad school you're doing it wrong.

Another alternative is to have your employer foot the bill. Most companies will cover one class per semester. (There's a non-trivial tax break that they can then take). Takes longer, but better than loans!

Re:Degree Mills

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically in the USA and Canada for the sciences and engineering if you stick with a university that is a member of the Association of American Universities you are looking at a school that is in general good. Maybe the particular program you are interested is not ranked in the top 5, but it is the best way to guarantee a solid education in both science/engineering and all the other general stuff that makes you more well rounded. The AAU list also happens to be one of the filters big name successful companies are now using when seeking out recent graduates.

http://www.aau.edu/about/article.aspx?id=5476

Boston University (2012)
Brandeis University (1985)
Brown University (1933)
California Institute of Technology (1934)
Carnegie Mellon University (1982)
Case Western Reserve University (1969)
Columbia University (1900)
Cornell University (1900)
Duke University (1938)
Emory University (1995)
Georgia Institute of Technology (2010)
Harvard University (1900)
Indiana University (1909)
Iowa State University (1958)
The Johns Hopkins University (1900)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1934)
McGill University (1926)
Michigan State University (1964)
New York University (1950)
Northwestern University (1917)
The Ohio State University (1916)
The Pennsylvania State University (1958)
Princeton University (1900)
Purdue University (1958)
Rice University (1985)
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (1989)
Stanford University (1900)
Stony Brook University-State University of New York (2001)
Texas A&M University (2001)
Tulane University (1958)
The University of Arizona (1985)
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York (1989)
University of California, Berkeley (1900)
University of California, Davis (1996)
University of California, Irvine (1996)
University of California, Los Angeles (1974)
University of California, San Diego (1982)
University of California, Santa Barbara (1995)
The University of Chicago (1900)
University of Colorado Boulder (1966)
University of Florida (1985)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1908)
The University of Iowa (1909)
The University of Kansas (1909)
University of Maryland, College Park (1969)
University of Michigan (1900)
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (1908)
University of Missouri-Columbia (1908)
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1922)
University of Oregon (1969)
University of Pennsylvania (1900)
University of Pittsburgh (1974)
University of Rochester (1941)
University of Southern California (1969)
The University of Texas at Austin (1929)
University of Toronto (1926)
University of Virginia (1904)
University of Washington (1950)
The University of Wisconsin-Madison (1900)
Vanderbilt University (1950)
Washington University in St. Louis (1923)
Yale University (1900)

IMHO, if you want to be flexible, resilient and have a lifelong career(s) -- not just a job -- then picking a school because of its overall good education is more important than picking a top 10 or 20 program. This is especially true in CS where one usually ends up applying the degree to some domain outside of pure comp sci.

In fact considering how computer fields are becoming more and more specialized it might be smarter to major in a domain where software development can be applied and minor in CS. Very few CS majors ever get a job that is the pure CS realm.

Re:Degree Mills

[Anonymous Coward]

and that's not because the students are stupid

Wrong. The average person is not dumber than they used to be, but the average person is still idiotic. Since many more people are going to college now than in the past, it follows that more idiots are going as well.

Re:Degree Mills

[docmordin]

A 4.0 from MIT might help when securing an interview for Google but most places are more concerned about your ability to reliably deliver. [...]

As an aside, MIT has a 5.0 scale, not a 4.0 one: http://web.mit.edu/registrar/gpacalc.html

Re:Degree Mills

[Anonymous Coward]

It's highly unusual in any industry for everybody that applies to get an interview, the screening process is highly informative of the competence or lack thereof in a company.

And you'd be surprised how badly HR can fuck things up even when they are just handling paperwork. I know of times when they refuse to hand over paperwork of qualified individuals for no particularly obvious reason other than them having to justify their own jobs.

Re:Degree Mills

[Anonymous Coward]

I go to a local State college because, well, it's local and I can afford it. If you're paying your own way, there's not a lot of chances for you to go to a very high end university for computer science.

I just Googled top computer science departments to be sure and there are still is a majority at state schools.

STOP

[fazey]

You're saturating the market! Go pick something else!

I went because Bill Gates is SOOO charismatic

[Richard Dick Head]

Pretty soon they'll be posting jaded comments from their laptop, laying in bed in their parents basement, just like me! Oh, if only times were better...

::Stares dreamily of poster of Bill Gates in his stunning 80's sweater, posing on his desk::

Re:I went because Bill Gates is SOOO charismatic

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty soon they'll be posting jaded comments from their laptop, laying in bed in their parents basement, just like me! Oh, if only times were better... ::Stares dreamily of poster of Bill Gates in his stunning 80's sweater, posing on his desk::

Oh God! (Yep, not logged in) I REALLY DID THAT!

Growing up back in the 80s, we were all anti-hippy - my (not speaking for others of my generation) goal anyway, was to sell out, make lots of money, have fast cars, goorrrrrrgeous women, and stick it to the man by crushing him into dust. My hero back then was Bill Gates because by the mid 80s, it was obvious that Microsoft (Gates) Rules and Apple (Jobs) Drools!

Gates was my hero, man! And yes, I had his photo from Fortune (IIRC) on the wall - I think he was in a open collared button down shirt, khakis, and those big metal framed face shield sized glasses.

Job me!

[Citizen of Earth]

Perhaps a degree in Medieval Russian Poetry isn't looking as 'employable' as it used to.

Re:Job me!

[ebno-10db]

These days a degree in Medieval Russian Poetry is as employable as any other degree.

Re:Job me!

[Anonymous Coward]

More so than most shitty comp-sci degrees.

Go America!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks to all the foreign competition filling up our schools, we can finally say we're becoming competitive!

Hey China, look at all our new grads! Oh, wait...

No excuse now to outsource, except for the obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

I recally CIOs pining about how they didnt have the skills in US, so now they have to come up with a different reason!

No jobs and too many Visas

[bussdriver]

Apparently all the advertizing for Visas has high school students confused that there is a shortage of CS people. The side benefit is that having too many graduates will result in the same outcome if the Visa program can not continue to be abused.

Walmart used to hire people with bad credit (after performing credit checks on applicants) because those employees are the closest to indentured servants. THAT business ethic is not restricted to Walmart management. Indentured servants are the goal. CS graduates with huge debts doing IT support jobs a teenager can perform can fill the gap the Visas have not been filling...

Re:No jobs and too many Visas

[zedrdave]

> Walmart used to hire people with bad credit (after performing credit checks on applicants) because those employees are the closest to indentured servants

[citation needed]

Not that I can't believe Walmart would do absolutely anything to help their bottom line: they do have plenty of well-documented horrendous employment practices. But: 1) this makes little sense (people with large debt are objectively less responsible and less likely to feel any sense of responsibility toward their employer, not to mention more likely to engage in unethical behaviours to repay their debt) 2) anything I could find online pointed at the exact opposite (that Walmart was unlikely to hire people with bad credit history).

So please source your claims or stick to actual facts. Unsupported rumours only do disservice to the worthy cause of exposing the sociopathic behaviours of corporations like Walmart.

Re:No jobs and too many Visas

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a moron if you think high debt means that a person is objectively less responsible. Responsibility is a tiny part of a very complex set of variables. Clearly walmart is objectively more intelligent than you, they have far more money and are far more successful.

Great News!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully they'll be smart and move to India so they can get a job in the U.S. on an H1B1.

"Computer Science"

[degeneratemonkey]

It seems that an increasing proportion of Computer Science resumes I receive are from recent graduates who don't know much at all about computer science. They've done a little Java or C++ or VB programming, they've explored such in-depth topics as linked lists and arrays, and they've heard of quicksort.

Anything from complexity analysis, language classification, (heaven forbid) Turing machines, to operating systems, memory management, distributed systems, or synchronization? Hell, hell no.

Re: "Computer Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet your farts smell great

Re:"Computer Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

No shit. Just yesterday, a fortune-100 company that can't be named, hired me to reprogram their turing machine to comply with some "new" federal regulations. Air-quotes on "new" because their in-house "development" staff had 3 years to fix it but none of them have any experience with the turing machine that runs all the important business processes.

Re:"Computer Science"

[tyrione]

It seems that an increasing proportion of Computer Science resumes I receive are from recent graduates who don't know much at all about computer science. They've done a little Java or C++ or VB programming, they've explored such in-depth topics as linked lists and arrays, and they've heard of quicksort. Anything from complexity analysis, language classification, (heaven forbid) Turing machines, to operating systems, memory management, distributed systems, or synchronization? Hell, hell no.

You can't graduate from a Pac 12 conference CS program without having exposure to what you hoped to find in your resumes.

I know it is still true at WSU, UofW, Stanford, OSU, Cal, and UCLA/USC

Re:"Computer Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't graduate from a Pac 12 conference CS program without having exposure to what you hoped to find in your resumes.

I know it is still true at WSU, UofW, Stanford, OSU, Cal, and UCLA/USC

U of Mich, in the Midwest, as well.

Re:"Computer Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

Colleges teach student about Turing machines because Turing laid the foundation for modern computational theory. If you don't learn about those things, you're not a computer scientist, you merely went to a vocational school for programmers. Similarly you can be an electrician without understanding the true nature of electricity and the underlying laws of physics, but you shouldn't expect to be able to do the jobs an EE graduate does.

Re:"Computer Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

Our Turing machine wasn't Y2K compliant, but it's universal, so we just programmed it to simulate a Y2K-compliant machine.

(captcha: convert)

Re:"Computer Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget UofO! You get all that and much more.
A number of us work at a well known chip maker and our daily work (SW Dev) requires knowledge of OS theory and implementation and Mem Mgmt...sync is just a given (come on its not that hard)...complexity analysis also seems like a no-brainer.

What blows me away are the CS grads I interview that can't handle pointers today. Lots of them seem to have no idea how they work, how virt mem or the mem hierarchy work. One should have these introduced in at least a computer organization or OS class. Then there are the ones who "have a CS degree", but 99% of their programming has been in something like VB. I would expect that from someone getting a MIS degree from a business school, but not full on CS degree.

Some of the worst come from these small private colleges that seem to instill attitude over substance/education.

Re:"Computer Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, an EE doesn't understand the true nature of electricity either. Ask one about virtual photons...

Re:"Computer Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

i did everything you mentioned in my cs undergrad courses. just have to find a good school (in my case salisbury university which has a great cs program).

Re:"Computer Science"

[degeneratemonkey]

There are still plenty of schools with respectable CS curricula that would meet these standards. I was only saying that the pool of CS grads is increasingly diluted by folks coming out of lesser programs.

As a very basic heuristic filter: If there are no course requirements for discrete mathematics or computational theory, then it's not a real CS program.

Re:"Computer Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to me you mistakenly believe that programmers are computer scientists. Get your shit straight... they are not. Programming does not require a CS degree nor any degree, and computer science doesn't require being proficient at Java, C++, or wtf VB, nor any programming whatsoever, and, get this, good computer science does not even require a computer. Let me make it simple for you so you are no longer confused in the future...

Computer Science = Mathematics

While the = above is not entirely precisely accurate, it will keep you from making incorrect and idiotic assumptions about something you obviously know very little, if anything whatsoever.

Re:"Computer Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems that an increasing proportion of Computer Science resumes I receive are from recent graduates who don't know much at all about computer science. They've done a little Java or C++ or VB programming, they've explored such in-depth topics as linked lists and arrays, and they've heard of quicksort.

Anything from complexity analysis, language classification, (heaven forbid) Turing machines, to operating systems, memory management, distributed systems, or synchronization? Hell, hell no.

O RLY? How are they at quadratics or calculus? Cryptography? How about weather modeling? Predictive systems? Informatics? See... the only reason a Computer Science student might learn Java or C++ is to use it as a learning vehical to understand something else. You don't have a fucking clue what Computer Science is... therefore I submit you must be at the top of your field in Human Resouces.

You have some nerve posting here.

Re:"Computer Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to upgrade to a Grand Lux Turing machine.

Re:"Computer Science"

[degeneratemonkey]

As far as I can tell, you completely missed my point. I understand precisely what Computer Science is and I understand precisely what programming is. You may have self-esteem issues.

My shit's pretty straight.

Re:"Computer Science"

[degeneratemonkey]

Another fine Anonymous Coward completely misses the point and leaps at the opportunity to spout vitriol. IMBNH.

Re:"Computer Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

ah... a brilliant retort, coming from a pinhead HR manager that is. It's unfortunate you've obviously completely missed A.C.'s point and have retreated to the relative safety of... saying absolutely nothing.

Congress gunning for 300,000 plus H1Bs

[rsilvergun]

who in their right mind would go into CS? Or are these foreign students? I did hear that we've got a lot of them encouraged to come here because they pay a lot more than their local counterparts.

Re:Congress gunning for 300,000 plus H1Bs

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see, I love computers, I love programming, I love everything associated with how computers do what they do. I love solving problems using a computer, I love building information systems from scratch. I love databases and cryptography. What do you suggest I pick my major to be mr asshat? Are you saying I should pick English as my major? Or should I study what I like and what get's the recruiters at career fair jizzing when they see my resume? I know people who graduated years ago. A Finance major teaching in a charter school, an English major who works at a coffee shop and is a prostitute, and a Computer Engineer that works at an electronics recycler. Guess what I will do when I graduate? Code on a fuckin computer!

Re:Congress gunning for 300,000 plus H1Bs

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see, I love computers, I love programming, I love everything associated with how computers do what they do. I love solving problems using a computer, I love building information systems from scratch. I love databases and cryptography. What do you suggest I pick my major to be mr asshat? Are you saying I should pick English as my major? Or should I study what I like and what get's the recruiters at career fair jizzing when they see my resume? I know people who graduated years ago. A Finance major teaching in a charter school, an English major who works at a coffee shop and is a prostitute, and a Computer Engineer that works at an electronics recycler. Guess what I will do when I graduate? Code on a fuckin computer!

at home?

Re:Congress gunning for 300,000 plus H1Bs

[helobugz]

What do you suggest I pick my major to be mr asshat?

Mathematics, assclown.

Re:Congress gunning for 300,000 plus H1Bs

[Anonymous Coward]

Choose something else that interests you as your major. Then choose Computer Science as a double major, minor, or focus. You'll still be able to code if you want, but unlike your bazillion peers, you'll also be employable. This is what I'm doing.

Re:Congress gunning for 300,000 plus H1Bs

[Anonymous Coward]

You have it backwards: the fact that companies can't find enough qualified Americans and that they have to look overseas to fill their positions means that going into CS is an *excellent* idea.

Re:Congress gunning for 300,000 plus H1Bs

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the market in the US that bad?
I have a masters degree in computer science in Belgium, and it seems a lot better here. I regularly get recruiters on the phone asking me to come join another company.

Re:Congress gunning for 300,000 plus H1Bs

[Maxo-Texas]

I managed to retire from the field this year after about 27 years in it.

The path I've seen is bad.

Brutal hours, work holidays and weekends, low status, decent pay.
Actual early death, lots of divorce (if you can manage to get married).

Last job worked us 70+ hours for 2 years. 3 deaths, multiple non-fatal heart attacks. The free lunch and dinner at our desks was a nice perk tho it dropped in quality and healthiness as time went on. The pay was good (about $100 to $125k) in the south.

Now I hear the people who were not laid off are basically being worked even harder and they don't even have the benefits of being laid off.

If you go into CS, do what i did. Live on half of what you made and save the rest.

Because the age discrimination is blatant and fierce.

Re:Congress gunning for 300,000 plus H1Bs

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

Let's see, I love computers, I love programming, I love everything associated with how computers do what they do. I love solving problems using a computer, I love building information systems from scratch. I love databases and cryptography. Guess what I will do when I graduate?

Collect a welfare check.

Re:Congress gunning for 300,000 plus H1Bs

[Anonymous Coward]

Bunch oftheoretical nonsense. Sure you will know the underlying architecture, but your code will be amateur hour, and your choice in libraries will be poor.

Now comp science with math minor, if you can survive all four semesters of calculus and the linear algebra, it only takes 1 or 2 more math classes to get the minor.

Math and compsci do make an excellent dual major though.

But a pure math major, all theory and no substance, needs other classes to flesh it out unless your goal is to be a professor of mathematics.

Re:Congress gunning for 300,000 plus H1Bs

[Anonymous Coward]

lol you're dumb

Re:Congress gunning for 300,000 plus H1Bs

[Anonymous Coward]

where the fuck were you working? i'm 2 years out of college and work for a defense contractor, make $95k, set my own hours, never work more than 40 hrs/wk and get great benefits (and lots of free beer). maybe you were just in a bad location?

this industry is great.

Re:Congress gunning for 300,000 plus H1Bs

[thoth]

and work for a defense contractor

Bolded for emphasis... obviously what you did doesn't scale and won't work for EVERYONE going into CS. Even the U.S. citizens can't ALL work for the defense industry.

Re:Congress gunning for 300,000 plus H1Bs

[thoth]

Argh, replying to my reply because I left off part of what I wanted to say.

set my own hours, never work more than 40 hrs/wk and get great benefits (and lots of free beer). maybe you were just in a bad location?

this industry is great.

Like the original post this was a reply to, my 2nd job out of college was with, let's just say a large software corporation in the Pacific Northwest.

I worked 60+ hours a week for 3 years. Evenings, Saturdays, Holidays, hell I even worked one day of my vacation (as in, I was out of town visiting some friends where I went to college. That happened to be in the same city as a large OEM computer manufacturer. I went in to the vendor on my vacation to take a look at a problem. Yeah.)

When I complained about the workload, my boss generally had the attitude "fuck you and quit, there are 9 other people waiting to take your job".

Basically, Mr. Anon Coward working for the defense industry, which is plump with government largesse (not all of it bad, but I sure hope you aren't one of those dumbfuck republitardservaterians with their idiot hypocrisy about government spending), and who possibly has not ever worked in Corporate "we'd-rape-your-ass-for-profit-if-it-were-legal" America, I have this to say: FUCK YOU you dipshit. 2 years out of college and you think you know everything? You don't have a goddamn clue.

Re:Congress gunning for 300,000 plus H1Bs

[Areyoukiddingme]

That industry is salaried non-exempt. Which means they're required by law to pay overtime, even to salaried employees. NO ONE else has to do that. They're all exempt. So everywhere outside the defense industry, the GGP's situation is the norm, not the exception.

Re:Congress gunning for 300,000 plus H1Bs

[toddestan]

Yeah, but all those positions they can't fill are senior-level positions which are kind of irrelevant for a recent graduate. A lot of the junior level stuff has been sent overseas, and there's lots of competition for what's left.

Re:Congress gunning for 300,000 plus H1Bs

[hemp]

By "qualified" they mean willing to work for the low wages they are offering.

There is a reason why the biggest users of H1-B visas are contacting shops from India.

Top 5 H1-B users for 2012:

Infosys Limited 18844
Tata Consultancy Services Limited 8461
Wipro Limited 8086
Deloitte Consulting Lp 5628
Ibm India Private Limited

Re:Congress gunning for 300,000 plus H1Bs

[Maxo-Texas]

Grats. You are in a golden job- you should be saving a minimum of $20k to $30k per year.

Many IT jobs are not like you are describing.

I'm looking at IT from the outside now.

It's weird- I don't have $5k a month to spend after savings any more. That "money fountain" was nice.

But I feel better than I have in years and I appear to have about $1k a month more to spend than I am spending. And I think I can squeeze out another $400 or so.

I'm sleeping 9 hours a day, reading books again, drawing, cooking, spending about 4 hours a week with my grandkids*, walking about sixty miles a month. I've probably added a few healthy years to my life.

* (this is really key as the older one starts school next year).

IT can be a path to success. But you need to be *really* careful you save as you go. Because it has a lot of bad exits. Especially after you turn 40.

I can probably get one more job as a project manager if I wanted to. Put another $200k on the pile of my savings and quit again in 5 years. But I'd have to give up my life. Maybe after the grandson starts kindergarten. Much more likely to do Habitat for Humanity and a couple hours a week of massage for people with migraines, chronic fatigue, and carpal tunnel/tendonitis.

The three people who died really got my attention. One was not even 50. I saw so many young kids like you with dark circles under their eyes from exhaustion and a couple actually looked like they had black eyes. They were risking their health. And probably shortening their lifespans.

CS is not IT / desktop / severs / networking

[Joe_Dragon]

CS is not IT / desktop / severs / networking / ect.

Re:CS is not IT / desktop / severs / networking

[rubycodez]

true, but guess what type of jobs the graduates apply?

Re:CS is not IT / desktop / severs / networking

[Anonymous Coward]

Not every school seems to have an IT degree. My supervisor in the AF, who is a NE for a major company, suggested getting a CS degree and IT experience/certs (though those are worthless).

Re:CS is not IT / desktop / severs / networking

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but if you graduated with 2.5 gpa inCS you picked the wrong major to start

Re:No excuse now to outsource, except for the obvi

[Anonymous Coward]

You're assuming that the people getting those degrees have the skills CIOs are looking for. Considering the number of interview candidates (yes, with CS degrees) who fail FizzBuzz and other equally simple tests, there's probably not much that's going to change except an increase in the unemployment rate for CS grads.

In Medieval Russia...

[Anonymous Coward]

Village dead brings out YOU!

Re:In Medieval Russia...

[Anonymous Coward]

So that's where the Zombies will come from....

Get a EE degree instead

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

You just need a little bit more physics, able to deal with circuits, microcontroller and so on. Looks much better than CS at least on paper.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you won't be able to code if you do EE. Too many EE grads I've had to train that just don't get programming because they've only had to take 2 classes and didn't have to pull all nighters just to get a project done.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[HornWumpus]

I agree, but don't minimize the engineering core. 1 semester each from the major engineering disciplines. Statics, thermo, circuits for all engineers. It was joy IIRC.

Also Engineers need more core math then CS, to go with the physics.

If you flunk out of engineering you can always go back to CS. That's a very typical path.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you won't be able to code if you do EE. Too many EE grads I've had to train that just don't get programming because they've only had to take 2 classes and didn't have to pull all nighters just to get a project done.

get a math degree. you can write your own ticket, and if you can get a math degree, you can be pretty sure
you will have the smarts to code if you want to.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Physics 2 is painful enough. Most CS hate it so much, nothing cool about it, just total boredom. And you want us to take more?

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you go to a decent school where CS IS engineering. Including the same math and physics requirements. Then when you fail out of engineering, you end up in business school.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[sourcerror]

Except that HR doesn't have any idea what a math degree is good for.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[RightwingNutjob]

Right backatcha. Too many CS types I've worked with just don't get hardware because they've only taken freshman physics and have never had to stay up all night trying to debug a faulty bit just to get a project done. And they can't quite grasp that even an occasional segfault in a program that controls moving machinery is not acceptable.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[tyrione]

You just need a little bit more physics, able to deal with circuits, microcontroller and so on. Looks much better than CS at least on paper.

A little more Physics? I'm sorry, but having both CS and a Mechanical Engineering, CS might as well be an Art Degree by comparison. I'll take an EE degree holder over a CS major every day of the week to hire.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[englishknnigits]

I only know one EE that is satisfied with being an EE. All of the others are trying to get CS jobs and wishing they actually had some CS training. The only EE knowledge I have heard of being widely useful is basic circuit analysis which you can get in just a few classes. Granted, there are going to be some jobs where in depth EE knowledge is actually useful but those jobs are few and far between. What you really want is a CPE degree where you become a competent programmer combined with a basic knowledge of circuits and hardware. EE's go too heavy on the physics, which 99% won't need, and too light on programming, which 99% will need.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[tyrione]

Unless you go to a decent school where CS IS engineering. Including the same math and physics requirements. Then when you fail out of engineering, you end up in business school.

CS is not FUCKING ENGINEERING. It never will be. It is called Computer Science for a reason. Most ME/EE graduates I knew had FORTRAN, C and C++ for Numerical Analysis, Finite Element Analysis, Computational Fluid Dynamics and more. Not a goddamn CS would understand a fucking think about Fracture Mechanics but an ME would boringly pick up a programming language just by reading the damn book. Want to learn about UNIX Networking, or threading just read some quality books on both the theory and application. Want to learn how to model Aerodynamics for a multi-body nonlinear dynamics system, spend 5 years building up to it. How come? It's far more complex and requires skills that you can't learn in a book. Engineering has many disciplines because people have many different aptitudes towards applied Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Learning a new hashing algorithm isn't an aptitude, but just exposure of how a programming language, compiler and software APIs are designed to best be utilized. They aren't physical immutable laws of programming.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[englishknnigits]

Math degrees are great if you want to be a math teacher. If you don't want to be a math teacher, don't get a math degree.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[englishknnigits]

This.

At my school CS majors actually take more math than most engineering majors.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I was EE. Favorite was logic circuits and assembly language, and FPGA's. Making digital and analog circuits in lab was rewarding. That led to more and more circuit building, and eventually to higher level programming, and embedded work. And now applying logic to backend and frontend web work. Basically, if you're good, software and hardware are similar. A different medium. You're solving a problem with logic. Anyway, EE is a great, well rounded degree, leads to great opportunities, overlapping into CS. You're a real problem solver, with many tools, and useful experience.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[deander2]

That's just silly. I've worked with many math majors holding interesting non-teaching jobs.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[aztracker1]

When you're dealing with moving hardware, any software development really needs t be approached as a engineering discipline. Most software development needs to be approached as more of a craft, however. I wish more people simply understood the difference. Instead manager types tend to expect you to PFM* a solution.

* Pure F*cking Magic

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[HornWumpus]

If your going into college and you haven't coded anything yet, give up on CS or EE. You can likely do both, but you will never be really good. You don't love it enough. You better be open to being a better coder though.

For EE I'd raise the bar some more. If you don't already know how to use basic bench equipment don't go into EE.

If you've never blown anything up, don't even bother going into engineering of any kind.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[HornWumpus]

Calm down tyrione.

On some campuses CS is taught out of the Engineering school. Other options are Arts and Sciences (usually associated with the Math department) or the Business school.

Of those the worst by far are those that teach CS out of the business school.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Apples and oranges. You are comparing the basics in one discipline to advanced applications in another.

How would a CS model Aerodynamics for a multi-body nonlinear dynamics system? Pick up some books and let the processor do it for them.

How would an ME troubleshoot why the entire intranet has gone down? The same way that programmers do: call the IT guy. ;)

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[Osgeld]

"Except you won't be able to code if you do EE."

most people that do CS cant either, whats your point?

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[tsotha]

I've found just the opposite. We hire mostly EE and physics grads in preference to CS. Computer science programs don't teach people to code, and when you suggest that they should the academics always come back with "We're a university, not a trade school!"

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[Anonymous Coward]

People with math degrees, who are intelligent, can make buckets of money in finance, various technology sectors, insurance, public health, hell worse case scenario can just go and get a law degree and become a high paid patent attorney. Being a math teacher are for those who were able to grind out a degree but are not really talented in math.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, and disagree.

I have done Middle Level Technical School in Electronic Engineering, then I continued with Higher Level Technical School in Computer Science (Bachelor of Science degree). The HTS CS was a joke compared to the MTS EE. The head of the school explained to me that people who enter a MTS are technically inclined (and couldn't handle general school (too much languages for as a dyslexic)) and can easily pick up hard math and technical subjects, while people entering at HTS are people who fail to get into a university from those more general schools.

However, this is the part where I disagree.
Electrical Engineers are bad coders compared to programmers who have gone through the trouble of getting a CS degree. I am not saying that CS graduates are good coders, I am saying the programmers who still code after they have graduated from CS are. For an EE electronics has been their first love, for CS computers and programming are their first love.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[degeneratemonkey]

Someone has an awfully fucking large ax to grind, don't they? Let's see an EE build Google Maps from scratch with his cute little books about hash tables and UNIX Networking and shitty FEM code scrapped together in FORTRAN. Just pick up some quality books on the theory and application of ____________ and you can build incredibly complex, massive-scale information systems using the power of numerical analysis and computational fluid dynamics.

It's not apples and oranges, it's apples and fucking Jupiter.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[Anonymous Coward]

I've only got a BS in CS and a MS in Comp Sci & Engr and am employed at a well known chip company so I see a lot of EE grads. In fact I am coaching one on remedial programming. Our group hires both EE and CS types because our group does some rather unique and exotic stuff. The EE guys just about always need coaching on basic programming...heck many don't understand pointers or memory use, the memory hierarchy, embedded programming, drivers, protocols, EFI, OSes, etc, etc.

The EE side of things is not very difficult. It is physics and digital logic. None of the CS types have any problem with it. Most EEs never do anything very complex in this day. The most complex stuff at chip companies is handled mainly by people that PhDs in Physics or Material Science. That's where the real gains are made. Most EEs are just snapping together Lego blocks.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[docmordin]

If your [sic] going into college and you haven't coded anything yet, give up on CS or EE. You can likely do both, but you will never be really good. You don't love it enough. You better be open to being a better coder though.

For EE I'd raise the bar some more. If you don't already know how to use basic bench equipment don't go into EE.

What a crock of shit. I hadn't programmed or played around with circuits before heading to university, yet managed to leave, the first time around, with an S.B./S.M. EECS, either sole or first authorship on more than ten top-tier journal papers, a handful of patents, and more than enough money on which to retire from having worked at and propped up a start-up company.

For those who might come across HornWumpus' comment, do not, even for a brief moment, feel discouraged. Anyone, regardless of his or her background, can go into EE or CS and make fantastic contributions to either field. All that ultimately matters is finding the right environment to nurture your innate talents, the tenacity to see your ideas come to fruition, and the willingness to learn, even if it takes more than one try.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[RightwingNutjob]

To paraphrase a prophet, the determined real programmer can write fortran programs for any application.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you're a retard and are interviewing retards.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[HornWumpus]

How long ago? How common were computers?

Unless you are even older then me, I call bullshit.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh. Computer Science is not Engineering, although they share a lot of similarities at times. However, while you seem to have an understanding of one thing Computer Science is not, your argument seems to betray an ignorance about what computer science is. Despite what you may think, Computer Science is not the study of programming.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Which explains why Fortran is clearly the dominant language in all fields.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[englishknnigits]

I bet you pretty much all of them have a secondary degree that is not math or they had a technical elective focus that was not math (programming, engineering, economics, etc.). I'm talking about a BS in math without some external, applicable focus. Sure, if you tack on other things you can do well and find non-teaching jobs. It is kind of like a business degree in that it, in and of itself, won't net you a lot of jobs. If you combine it with other things it can make you a desirable employee.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you won't be able to code if you do EE.

But you will learn good engineering practices, standards, fault tolerance, documentation, and how to build things properly.

So when you do learn to code, you won't spew buggy crap like so many "software engineers" who build first and design later.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[Anonymous Coward]

From where did you earn your CS degree? I have read your previous post as well and you seem to be slightly insecure about your ME degree and certainly have an ax to grind as another poster has observed. I know of a two or three former CS students that decided to ditch CS and go ME and did just fine; I also know of a ME student that wanted to come CS and ended up dropping. Everyone has their own interests... stop trying to come off on people because you are insecure about your degrees.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[Anonymous Coward]

How long ago? How common were computers?

Unless you are even older then me, I call bullshit.

You'd be wrong then, I hadn't done anything but write a dice rolling program on my C64, 15 years before I entered university (unless you want to count a week of Logo in high school). I though people programmed computers using "binary" (yeah, I didn't even know the lingo or jargon). In 1996 I learned C++ for the first time, I'd say computers were common enough, I've developed ever since and apparently have annoyed people who have to try a lot harder than I do.

Can everyone do that? Probably not, but your assertion that people who haven't achieved some arbitrary criteria that you pulled out of your ass is the actual bullshit in this case.

Re:Get a EE degree instead

[docmordin]

How long ago? How common were computers?

Unless you are even older then me, I call bullshit.

I matriculated when I was fourteen, about two years before the turn of the second millennium, and finished both degrees before I turned twenty. Despite starting early, I was far from the youngest graduate, as one of my peers managed to complete an S.B./M.Eng. CS by the time he was sixteen.

In any event, in both my situation and his, let alone those of others I have encountered, we all had little prior experience dealing with electronics and computers yet plenty of natural aptitude for and budding interest in the subject. In my case, I was fascinated, and still am, about the possibility of furthering statistical machine vision and managed to find the perfect adviser to not only spur my creativity, but also put up with my astounding initial ignorance. In his, he wanted to advance computer graphics and wound up submitting some excellent, now heavily-cited papers to SIGGRAPH and Eurographics.

We Need More H-1Bs?

[Anonymous Coward]

But wait! The corporations tell us there isn't enough local talent to fill tech jobs, and that we need more H-B1s! Guess they didn't get the memo.

attrition

[Anonymous Coward]

A significant amount of these students will be weeded out mainly due to the fact programming alone is not computer science, and the fact that Calc 1, 2, 3, prob stat, linear alebra, physics 1, physics 2, and physics 3 are not for the light hearted. I feel that many will opt to go either get a BA in some IT related course which is mainly business analyst focused with some programming and networking.

Re:attrition

[Anonymous Coward]

(good) universities and colleges have ways of balancing this out...its just the natural order of things.

Re:EVERYBODY DO CS

[helobugz]

Maybe they will dilute the CS talent pool enough that recruiters will start recognizing where the real talent is -- dropouts =).

Re: smarter..

[helobugz]

or be smarter and avoid drugs & the fuzz so they can qualify for a clearance. Talent not required, just an immaculate permanent record. Sad, but true.

Then just do it

[rsilvergun]

but why spend 4 years in school and walk out with a worthless piece of paper? At least get a business degree. A business degree lets you apply for any job out there. A CS degree gets you replaced by an H1B. And no, I don't suggest an English Major. Yes, there are worse majors for employment than CS, but you work damn hard for that CS degree...

Re:Then just do it

[Pro777]

Reality begs to differ.

http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2013/majors-that-pay-you-back

As a holder of a BS in computer science, if I need someone to move columns in Excel, I will do it myself.

Re:Then just do it

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't speak for you but my 4 years in university were anything but useless. I was forced to learn to think in different ways and approach problems from different perspectives. Also, that piece of paper opened doors, even if they were as simple as being able to check the "has CS degree" box on the employment application. Co-op/internship was very helpful as well; I got to work on a high profile project and rub elbows with some rather important people while doing interesting work.

Could I have gotten the same benefit from a bunch of reading and experimenting? Theoretically. Do I think I would have? I doubt it.

comp eng cs

[Anonymous Coward]

In my experience, after getting a comp sci degree, I had few job opportunities. After completing my computer engineering degree, i got a excellent job before my final exams had even started. I guess the comp sci helped, but engineering is where its at.

doesnt hurt that I got a applied math degree tacked onto the eng either...8 years for 3 degrees...and I have a job where I help people with phDs and masters. I would say go for breadth, not depth. It makes you more employable. I can design circuits, make websites, do financial analysis, electrical design/PLC programming and controls design and program in pretty much any language with little effort.

By far, google has been my greatest asset.

but i might be making all this up.

Go help the Wayland Project

[tyrione]

They seem to be a like a bunch of 5th graders learning to dribble with their non-dominant hand with their present inability to make caching efficient of stored states inside a max/min windowing environment. Hint: Talk to Apple. NeXT did it back in '89.

Re:Go help the Wayland Project

[serviscope_minor]

Go help the Wayland Project

No, don't. The solution is to modernise the parts of X that need it, not throw out the best GUI in existence in a quixhotic quest for shiny things.

I think half the reason that it's stalled is because the authors call X "legacy" and therefore old and bad and complicated so replacing it is obviously easy. Of course, it's not, and X wasn't written by idiots. Replacing it is really hard because it does a really hard job. Most of the reason its complex is because the world is not simple.

Secondary degrees?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if the majority these students responsible for this increase are enrolling in CS as their second degree? Obviously one degree by itself is rarely enough to get you through the door anywhere these days, but by having two degrees it just might be enough to get by HR. This is not only because you know how to do X (from your first degree), but now (with that CS knowledge) you'd supposedly have the skills to program things to do X on a computer.

I'm honestly thinking of going back to school and getting an associates in CS, because nobody in my chosen field will hire me with just a bachelor's and very little experience. (Right now I'm stuck doing some so-so near-minimum-wage job to just make ends meet. And it's hard to get much volunteering in for experience when the paying work already takes up too much time.)

No jobs = hide in academia for a while.

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

I graduated right after the dotcom bust, when everyone was looking for jobs and had lots of experience. Even with a degree from Carnegie Mellon, programming since I could press buttons, and my main hobby at home programming, I couldn't start my career. I thought of hiding in academia myself, but the major problem was I couldn't get student aid. Having student loans I can't ever pay off now is a pain as is.

Anyone want a Flash(AS3)/C/C++ programmer with over ten thousand hours coding? I'm a guy who's been told he works better than teams of 4 in 1/4 the time. I'll work for $15/hr, negotiable. I actually am on some personal projects at the moment(trying to start a business), but I can always shelf em and come back later.

Re:No jobs = hide in academia for a while.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone want a Flash(AS3)/C/C++ programmer with over ten thousand hours coding? I'm a guy who's been told he works better than teams of 4 in 1/4 the time. I'll work for $15/hr, negotiable.

Learn JavaScript, jQuery, JSON, AJAX, PHP. No, I am not joking. I am probably 1/10th the programmer you are and I'm earning $25/hr.

Or, just pray to your god to deliver a fat salary into your lap.

Re:No jobs = hide in academia for a while.

[aztracker1]

Just a couple suggestions... most people in IT aren't very religious... I don't mind (lean deist myself), but some might... you may want to do some work on your personal website, assuming your name matches the site... It doesn't need to be perfect.. just a little nicer (there are templates to work with like bootstrap, even platforms like wordpress)... If you have personal projects to show off, etc.. throw them up on github (assuming you have the rights).

On your personal site, have an html copy of your resume, as well as a link to the MS-Word version. Name off every technology you've touched, and then in your work history, re-state what you've touched. If you aren't touching hardware, or interested in game dev, I would suggest picking up a more dynamic environment to program in. Flash is all but dead, though AS3 and JS correlate really well, and NodeJS, MongoDB, Web-UI dev is growing a lot, JS skills can get you placed... .Net, or Java will net higher pay, but the time to build experience may well not be worth it.

I am not sure where you are located, but in the US, if you have more than 5 years of experience, and are any good, you should be able to find work for more than $30/hr, and if you are really good, you shouldn't be making less than $50/hr (More in some locations). The dot-com bust was a long time ago.. I was down and out for a year.. took a couple jobs at less than half what I made before, kept options open, and was willing to change jobs for opportunity and more money. Note: I'm in Phoenix, AZ... I know of lots of places hiring just the same. If you're in the sticks move to one of the top 20 largest cities (US), and you will find better paying, decent work.

Re:No jobs = hide in academia for a while.

[Anonymous Coward]

have anything to show other than a text file preaching at us?

no? well thats why you have no career over a decade after the fact, put up or shut up

Re:No jobs = hide in academia for a while.

[Anonymous Coward]

On your personal site, have an html copy of your resume, as well as a link to the MS-Word version.

I agree with the html copy, but for the love of god link to a pdf document instead of a MS-Word document.

Re:No jobs = hide in academia for a while.

[degeneratemonkey]

If you are as good as you think you are, find a way to show it. Seriously, there is a major disconnect between your situation and the skill set you claim to have. What's missing? A degree from CMU and 10 thousand hours of coding don't amount to anything if, for example, you just suck at problem-solving.

There are plenty of relevant positions to fill and you remain unemployed.

So here's a test of your problem-solving skills: Figure out what you're doing wrong.

Re:No jobs = hide in academia for a while.

[czth]

You may not like it, but recruiters tend to prefer a Word-format resume. (In part, I think, because it's easier for them to remove your contact information so that principals don't contact you directly, and monkey with it in other ways - they can do this with HTML, too, and PDF, but it's more difficult.) I get ideological purity (although given that .doc and .docx are both fairly open it's not so relevant), but be aware it may be a tradeoff. (Also: in before "I wouldn't want to work for anyone that wanted a Word resume anyway.")

Personally, I have a link to both a PDF and a Word (.docx) resume on my site. I used to have a plain text version, but nobody cared, so I yanked it; and I prefer providing PDF to HTML and both are equally accessible these days.

Re:No jobs = hide in academia for a while.

[aztracker1]

I have pdf, doc and opendoc... so have it covered.. switched to using opendoc as the base, and saving/exporting to .doc and .pdf.

Somewhat lame report

[Animats]

The "Computing Research Association" is a lobbying group. It's not on K Street NW in DC like most lobbyists. It's on L street, one block over. It's a lobby for federal funding for college CS departments.

Here's the actual report. Two charts are upside down. The focus is on race and gender. There's little discussion of CS vs IT vs EE vs CE degrees, although there are some separate table columns. Employment statistics are provided only for PhD graduates.

The data seems to be self-reported by the institutions involved.

Mostly matching other degrees.

[NitWit005]

If you examine Figure 1 in the report, there was a downward slide from 2001-2007 and an increase from 2007-now. That mostly matches what is seen for all majors in Figure 2. The real story here seems to be the overall education trend, not CS specifically.

Re:No excuse now to outsource, except for the obvi

[aztracker1]

True enough... no degree here.. self taught going on 17 years of professional dev... It is amazing how much a CS grad does not know... though the same goes for MS* certs. I think a lot of people just don't know how to work through real problems. For that matter.. dealing with supporting bad code... I spend about 1/3 of my time dealing with code I would just assume rip out, and replace.. sometimes I can refactor a little, sometimes more.. and sometimes you hold your nose and get the enhancement duck taped in place. Knowing how and when to do what.. that's what experience gives you.

Three questions:

[tlambert]

Three questions:

(1) Has the graduation rate gone up correspondingly?

(2) How many actually complete their degree without running in "year stretching" by the University choosing not to offer required classes?

(3) How many are at prestigious Universities in the right programs, rather than at Flash Game Programmer/JavaScript diploma mills?

Career Deferment

[kenh]

I think there are a good number of kids staying in college (ore returning to college) because of poor job prospects. It may be that they have no degree, or their degree is in a less commercial field.

They are racking up massive college debt hoping to ride out the bad economy and land on their feet on the other side - but mere posession of a CS degree may not be the "golden ticket" it once was to a high-paying career...

New Majors not Graduates

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a twisted statistic. Freshman year, first semester about 75% of everyone was Accounting major. Then by second semester, about 90% of them became Poly Sci or Communications majors.

The only real stat is how many people are graduating with a Degree in the given field.

Better than most job prospects...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've taught the first 2 introduction to programming courses at my university, and everything I've seen tells me that people still have a terrible misconception of what it takes to make it in the CS field. A lot seem to be in the program just because of the job prospects, which are better than a lot of fields, and have no clue what they are getting themselves into.

A lot of students just don't seem to want to or be able to develop the mind set that separates a simple code monkey from a software engineer or computer scientist, and even fewer just don't seem to have the potential or desire that would allow for an eventual move to management. Many seem to just want to scrape by with the minimum amount of effort. Unfortunately for them a 4 year degree by itself does not make you a valuable asset to anybody; especially since when looking at a resume and transcript it is very easy to see who did the minimum amount of work required and who truly has a passion for what they are doing.

Enrollment may be going up, and even if graduation rates are as well, I really don't think straight out of college hiring to non-entry level jobs is. The same people who got good jobs straight out of college in the past are still going to get them and there are still going to be battles for every entry level job.

Not impressed

[luis_a_espinal]

US CompSci Enrollment Leaps For 5th Straight Year

So???? Call me when CompSci requirements across the board are on par (or attempt to be on par) with top-notch universities, like Stanford. We have been seeing a continuously increasing enrollment in CompSci since the dot-com era. And that has gone hand-in-hand with a watering down of CompSci curricula (seriously, how can someone graduate with a CompSci degree without ever knowing what a pointer is, or what an assembly instruction looks like *)

Most of the IT/Enterprise software development work does not require a 4-year CompSci degree. A 2-year AS IT-related degree would do just fine. So the important thing here is to provide the adequate educational choices for people who want to pursue a career in software. But instead we seem content to increase the enrollment in CompSci while watering down the degree into a vocational programming workshop. Sorry, but that is no progress.

* And no, the argument that people don't need to know these things anymore is absolute bullshit. That's like saying a EE major doesn't need to know how a transistor is made because he simply buys one off-the-shell. It's a ludicrous argument.

Complacent Slavery (CS) degree

[Anonymous Coward]

Every 10 years students "pick" a random degree that seems safe while they blindly go to College and learn to live away from home. The CS degree is the current favorite "fad".

They usually pursue the lowest rung on the degree ladder, then either find a job or pursue an advanced degree if they can find funding.

The lesser job experienced individuals with a few social interaction hangups tend to get Phd degrees and end up placing a "too expensive to hire" sign around their neck.. sometimes making it into TA or student teaching positions, then sometimes making it into tenure tracks at "other universities" for a while.

Some may daisy chain a degree into a "start up" for a while while ironically developing "social skills"... they could even swing from one "gig" to another like a monkey on a tree for a while.

Most businesses abhor the idea of ending up "paying for" anyone's education.. and the hr function has become more a board game with the goal of "don't hire someone that could get me fired.."

The "masters degree" is the current sweet spot, coupled with dynamic and stellar social skills and a lack of tolerance for people with poor organizational or social skills, its the only long term winning combination today. They will also immediately pursue a career in project management as soon as they get their first job with a large company and leave their programming skills behind. The degree is too expensive to "hire" someone to do the work with a CS degree when they can cheaply outsource or export it. the actual work is for interns. The CS degree is a doorstop for getting in the door and pursuing other goals. It's the new "MBA".

Lazy

[bussdriver]

You do your homework. I do mine and remember the conclusions. I don't mind doing research because I've done so much of it already but I don't keep sources for everything I read on hand in a database in case I just happen to bring up something I've learned over the course of my life. I don't remember seeing clear cut data on this, but then there wasn't "clear" proof they were purposely discriminating against women - but reasonably looking at it, Walmart does it. You on the other hand are going totally off ignorant assumptions and lending too much weight to .... nothing. I admit I had similar assumptions when I heard it 1st but realizing I didn't know jack or even think about the issue, I followed up and changed my mind to something that had grounding. 1st impressions are not bad but you have to dismiss them as the baseless things they are. What I found out is that people with bad credit are more desperate and less likely quit; they'll likely put up with more for longer... at least that is what some business people think; including my former boss (when I brought it up, he acted like I was clueless - like it was common knowledge.) I only remember this factoid at all because it stuck in my mind as counter intuitive and shocking/unethical.

The burden is yours, not mine - this is not a formal debate or a paper and often I find that people who already have a strong position will not bother to investigate the sources honestly because it upsets their egos too much. It is a waste of time to put anything into a simple web comment for a total stranger. If you are a worthy candidate of the time and effort you will also be able to research on your own and change your position upon finding the truth; if not, either I may be incorrect or the info is too hard to find or the person is too lazy or biased.

Re:Lazy

[zedrdave]

Right. It's a well-known fact that the burden of proof is on the reader, not the poster of unsourced claims (claims that even superficial research would tend to disprove). We all know that this is the way good debates are made. Hell, I wonder why Wikipedia does not have a '[find your own goddamn citation]' tag: it would make things so much easier.

Then again, instead of trying to engage and present whatever evidence you may have, you'd rather successively engage in passing anecdotes for universal truth and ad hominem. I particularly like your assertion that my wrong-headedness is beyond saving and not worthy of your research time, when I went extra lengths to point out that I had absolutely no love for Walmart and their documented repeated abuse of employees' rights. At the end of the day, questioning your loose claims and methods has to make me some jackbooted thug out to get the little man.

We might be on the overall same side of this debate, I still think we'd be a lot better off without self-righteous, "my guts tell me so", quick-off-the-handle people like you: you only make it easier for fox news-fed morons on the other side to point at your obvious reasoning flaws and claim it a draw.